It is generally known to protect boats and other water craft from impacts with relatively immobile objects. Pleasure boats are typically outfitted with bumpers or the like, hanging down from the gunwale of the boat, to serve as an interface with a dock or like relatively immobile object. U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,724 Lumpkin teaches a typical such bumper at 13, in use (FIG. 4), and being stored in a receptacle at the gunwale 7 of the boat (FIGS. 1 and 3).
It is also known to mount bumpers to a water craft using several spaced mounting loci on the deck of the water craft as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,309,956 Yamaguchi.
Such bumpers are, however, ineffective for use along the gunwale of personal water craft because the gunwale is so close to the water line as to be below the typical dock. Thus, the bumpers would hang only below the dock, and would not interface with the dock. If such bumpers were, on the other hand, mounted to the inwardly-disposed main body of the personal water craft, they would still be generally too low in the water to interface with the dock. Further, they would be inboard of the outer edges of the water craft, and would thus not protect the outer edges of the water craft. In addition, typically available such bumpers are extraordinarily large compared to the small size of personal water craft, and would thus be too cumbersome for routine carriage and use with such small, but valuable, water craft.
Rather, what is needed is a small compact, light-weight standoff assembly which is easily mounted to the water craft to so protect it, and easily dismounted from the personal water craft, and which is small enough to be carried and stored on the craft, for use at diverse locations on the water.
It is an object of this invention to provide an upstanding standoff assembly, for attachment to a water craft.
It is another object to provide an upstanding standoff assembly having a base support member for securement at e.g. the gunwale of the water craft, a base member extension for extending upwardly from the base member to serve as an interface between the water craft and a dock, and upper support members for laterally bracing the standoff assembly against the main body of the water craft.
It is still another object to provide a standoff assembly which can be adjusted to fit on a wide variety of models of water craft, especially water craft having relatively lower gunwales near the water line, and a relatively higher, inwardly-disposed, main body.
It is yet another object to provide a standoff assembly which can be extended in use, and retracted to compact size for storage on a personal water craft when not in use.